At the end of the 20th century, during the great era of railways, every city on the west coast of the North American continent needed a fast and reliable supply line from the east to ensure growth and prosperity. San Diego was a small port city, and its rulers decided that for the city to grow, it needed a direct link to El Centro in the east to extend the supply line from its larger northern neighbor, Los Angeles. The San Diego and Arizona Railroad was proposed in the project.
The builders soon realized that the rail link to El Centro would face massive technical problems. Conditions were very difficult, treacherous mountain ranges were almost impassable, with giant boulders, deep valleys and numerous ridges and canyons. The prospects were so hopeless against them that this construction became known as the "Impossible Railroad".
The project involves the construction of 17 tunnels up to 800 meters long and 20 flyovers to cross the most mountainous eleven-mile stretch, but the railroad was finally completed in 1919. Maintaining the road in the Carrizo Gorge, with its many tunnels and overpasses, has been an ongoing challenge, especially in this earthquake-prone area. When an earthquake destroyed one of the tunnels in 1932, engineers took an alternate route around the ridge.
But an alternate route required building a bridge across a steep side ravine known as Goat Canyon. The wooden flyover that was built here remains to this day, the longest, tallest wooden flyover ever built in the United States. More than 180 meters long and 54 meters high in the center, the magnificent structure is a technical marvel that very few people have ever seen.
The last passenger train to take this road left San Diego on January 11, 1951, but the railroad continued to ferry cargo through the Carrizo Gorge until September 1976, when Kathleen's tropical storm washed away the canvas in many places. The damage to the section across the Gorge was so massive that it remains closed to this day. The abandoned railroad now attracts extreme lovers and railroad enthusiasts who are trying to follow the rails on a deserted and difficult to pass territory.
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